Review: Nitin Sawhney, Trinity

It’s been some 20 years since Nitin Sawhney emerged as a new musical voice from the UK Asian community and looking around the sizeable Trinity audience it would seem most were early adopters who’ve remained pretty loyal fans. With latest album Dystopian Dream – his eleventh – very hot from the presses there was the usual tension in the air: “let’s hear something new, but make sure we hear what we know”. It’s fair to say that by the end they weren’t disappointed in that respect, not least because the new music has a defiantly backwards looking sound. 

This was a well rehearsed affair, tight as it needed to be for a relentless week of country-spanning one-night stands. Being only day two it was perhaps unsurprising that things seemed mostly to be kept in check – and judicious restraint has long been a Sawhney trademark, anyway. As ever he sat on a stool in the shadows beside the band, with the impressive array of four vocalists plus bass and drums and familiar Indian percussion set up. There was also, unexpectedly, a second acoustic guitarist who turned out to be Gary Lutton, winner of TV talent show Guitar Star (on which Nitin had been a judge), who faithfully shadowed the main man’s distinctive Indo-Spanish rock playing throughout.

The range of vocalists is one of the keys to Nitin Sawhney’s sound, an extravagant resource that he uses well to give breadth and contrast to his songs: Tina Grace has a fine blues-rock grit, Sharleen Linton brings full-on soul/R’n’B and Nikki Wells somehow manages to slip between Bollywood, qawwali and contemporary rock. With Ashwin Srinivasan providing flute and percussion as well as male vocals there’s a palette available that allowed the set to include growling Alabama 3 swamp boogie (All Down The Line), smooth jazz balladry (Messiah), soul-blues (I Keep the Light On) and a fiery impassioned flamenco rumba whose title I didn’t catch but which unleashed Tina Grace in full-blown theatrics that even had the famously impassive Mr Sawhney smiling.

Dark Day In Heaven gave Nikki Wells the chance to switch from ethereal Asha to Bonnie Raitt (and back), the song another of Dystopian Dream’s rather gloomy meditations: the clue is in the title, of course, with themes of heaven, hell, devils and angels running through the new material we heard. It was a marked contrast to the delightful Nadia, an old favourite whose classic Indian style gave the two percussionists the chance to play interesting interactive games underneath Wells’ beautifully floating Hindi lyric.

Overall the newer material seemed more conventionally rock-flavoured and less reflective of Sawhney’s eclectic repertoire – for the final sequence he switched to electric guitar and It’s All For You had a distinct New Order flavour. But there was never any doubt how things would end, and the Spanish guitar returned for a final acoustic favourite, Prophesy, the duet/duel with tabla player Aref Durvesh that unleashes a flamenco-raga for both to indulge themselves in fine style. It’s a well-worn crowd pleaser that never seems to tire and rounds off the evening on a high note.